


diamond child

by friends_call_me_wobbly_hands



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Character Development, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Missing Scene, Multi, Origin Story, Pink Diamond Is Not A Villain, Pink Is Trying To Become A Better Person, and is Continuosly Nerfed, and trying to do better and overcome the learned abusiveness, basically a story of a child growing up in an abusive family, despite the sad lack of non awful role models, diamonds succ, only minor character tho, realizing that it is wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23024953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands/pseuds/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands
Summary: White Diamond is bored out of her mind. But perhaps an addition to her court will help her boredom. Children are meant for entertainment, right?
Relationships: Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Rose Quartz/Greg Universe
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	1. everything that's found is new (prologue)

White Diamond is bored out of her mind.

Her empire runs smoothly, as it should; her aide Diamonds do their best, as they must; and, when she walks to the window of her suite and looks out of it, resting her hands on the windowsill, she sees everything clicking together like perfectly fitted cogs. Colors blend in; shapes complement one another. Her world is filled with a steady rhythmic hum of a giant, complex yet quaint mechanism that is the Gem society. Everything is perfect. Everything is in order.

Everything is dull.

The most luminous Diamond sighs. Her inner perfectionist is sated, her doubts are numbed down, but there is a side to her that is scarily discontent… a side that demands something different. New. _More._ As if there is more to desire.

It is not a flaw, she disputes with herself. It is not a flaw to wish for entertainment. That’s all, that’s all. She’s merely bored. It is not her fault – it’s probably on everything and everyone else. Her environment is not ideal enough. If it was, she would reflect its perfection with better ease. It’s not her fault that all those things around her are so impure that they dull down her own light!

But it’s _her_ job to make it more ideal…

She makes new gems – Spinels, Pearls, Jades – all for herself, for her court, so only the ideal ones make the cut. They perform flawlessly. And yet, strangely and sadly enough, the fact that they perform their roles so meticulously also makes them utterly predictable. White Diamond watches them with glassy eyes and a lifeless smile, and no amount of self-delusion can make her claim that she is having fun.

She slowly gets rid of them, one after another, till she is alone again – with her thoughts, her fears, her boredom. She looks out of her window, admiring her work, but even that admiration is tainted with unease.

She spends eons like this until she finds an unlikely solution.

Yellow Diamond, in her endless strife to win over White’s favor, brings her a gift – a trophy, if you wish. It is a pair of rulers of a planet they just conquered - a pair of rulers and their _child_. All three are organics; all three are loud. It is _not_ appreciated much, and Yellow walks off with a stiff jaw and a desperate resolve in her eyes.

Yet, in her vain pursuit of entertainment, White keeps the three for a little while.

The two rulers look alike, so she concludes they must be of the same type, more or less. They are so, so small and fragile, and squishy, and nasty, and ill-behaved, and they refuse to follow orders, so she quickly grows tired of their antics. The _child_ , though…

It must be of a similar type, but different – perhaps it was cultivated under a different set of conditions. It is even smaller and even squishier and even more fragile. It has even less respect for authority. White understands the worth of the rulers, but she cannot comprehend what the little thing is for - until she sees it joke and make faces at the rulers. The two laugh.

White makes a mental note and starts observing closer.

Apparently, the child knows many jokes, and it can do simple tricks, and it can play, and sing, and dance – and make little scenes of everyone it sees in a derisive manner, something that White does not quite like. There seems no more to its existence than this. At the same time, it is full of imaginative power – it never repeats itself, and it even stands up to its superiors sometimes. It is small and manageable, so the rulers have no problem handling it. It is of the same type, so they can safely keep it without damaging their nobility status.

It is _genius._

The three organics stop functioning soon and are disposed of – but White already knows what she has to do so that her boredom is no more.

She only has to make a child.


	2. they were sleeping when you found them

Gems are born already the way they should be. Their birth is the last landmark of their development; nothing else can be gained, no new function is implemented. If something is lacking, or amiss, you can only scrap it and start over – preferably with a better set of conditions.

White knows of this, so she prepares everything herself, not quite trusting the lower Gems with such a precise job. She is as careful and attentive as she can be. Every small detail is accounted for. The temperature, the pressure, the chemicals, the planet in question, the star system – she scrutinizes every step along the way. Diamonds of the color she needs owe their hue to their structure rather than some chemical balance, so this time her job is even harder.

Finally, after years of preparation, she feels ready for the task. This realization makes her just a little lightheaded.

She still remembers how it felt when Yellow broke out of the crust – what a mighty explosion, that was. She was watching from the orbit as it happened, and her light reflected the yellow shine from below. It made her giddy. Another Diamond. Another Diamond _that she made._ She could barely keep herself from breaking into a rainbow. She would, if other Gems weren’t present and watching her every move. She was less experienced at perfection, back then.

When Blue came to be, much later, her face never twitched and her smile stayed the same, and she considered that a great progress. They all needed a good role model, after all.

But this, this – this will be something new entirely. Something else.

Yellow, Blue, and now Red. Three reflections, three prisms to make up the purest light of all.

White Diamond allows her perfect, polite smile twitch into something just a bit mischievous as she prepares the formula. It barely lasts a millisecond.

A _child_ Diamond. Not the sturdy right hand, not the helpful left hand, not even the head to think. Rather, a base. A foundation. There will be no function rather than support, and no role rather than entertainment. The three mighty Diamonds are there for the entire empire, but she? She will only be there for _them_.

She entrusts a planet with the formula. There it rests, deep within the warm inviting mantle: a speck of almost-life, changing into a life that is real. It slowly grows into its shell, stripping it of warmth, until there is nothing left but itself. Ironically, it’s the planet those three organics came from. White Diamond thought it would be a fitting tribute to their role in her eureka.

She does not rush, afterwards. There is no haste to the clacks of her heels as she walks around, no nervous twitches to her fingers. She has patience. She has time – she _needs_ time. It takes a long, long time for a Diamond to form.

Or so it should.

***

She wakes up with a gasp and a cry, as all newborns do, except hers is powerful enough to rip right through the fragile shell of the planet’s crust. Way above her, seas bellow in agony and land shakes. Stone melts as she fights her way to the surface. Under her powerful thrusts, the shell falls apart. If there was life still, after the invasion, the mining, and the slow decay of the planet’s core, it ceases to be.

She makes it out and pants, blinded by her own light. Everything feels foreign and hostile after the warmth of the mantle, so she takes a moment to sit and take her bearings. Her shining slowly recedes, from a hue so light and saturated that it is almost white to a gentler, softer color –

Red?

No, it is not. It is pink. This realization makes her frown in a shadow of disoriented confusion.

She settles on her knees. The land around her is dead and broken. The stars glimmer lifelessly above, catching her fascination for a moment, but she looks away soon when she realizes they stay the same. Her head slowly fills with the knowledge she needs, facts about herself and the world she has joined. It makes her feel a little dizzy. However, even though her life plan is mapped for her for eons, she does not know what to do, short term. And, like many newborns who have been left alone, she settles on a cry.

It is an automatic response to being frail and small in a world that is hard and big. It starts as a quiet, desperate sob, but then it slowly rises to a crescendo of a wail. Pink Diamond cries, waiting for someone to come and save her, and her tears fall onto the grey ground of the planet she broke without even knowing.

But no one comes. At least, not right away. In a way, that’s almost as cruel as not coming at all.

She has to wait for some time. Her time scale is so small that for her, this wait is an eternity of lonely suffering – the longest torture she has ever experienced. By the time a luminous ship arrives, her crying has already trickled down to watery sniffles. The ship catches her attention, and she freezes mid-sniffle. It descends, slowly, spreading a brilliant glow that mercilessly brings out the ugliness of the grey landscape. Finally, it lands. The dust soars and settles. Shadows stretch far, surrounding the shiny ship in a perfect circle.

Then, a figure steps out –

White Diamond, she realizes, stumbling to her unsteady feet and rushing towards her. The chaos of information in her head latches onto the familiar image and starts sorting itself. The sensation is a tremendous relief. It is someone she knows already, and something her program has predicted. Best of all, it is _her Diamond,_ big and strong and beautiful, so she can protect Pink from the harsh unknown. Pink is not meant to be a fighter, she knows that, and she is not a thinker either – she is a _child_ , and she is small, and she needs that protection more than anything.

However, White frowns, looking at her. Pink does not know yet how familiar she will become with that particular expression: a bored annoyance. This is how White looks at anything short of perfection.

“Now, now, what is _that_?”

She sinks to her knees and raises a palm in front of Pink, stopping her in her tracks. Then, two sparkling fingers grab the small Diamond by the waist, and she is lifted – up, up, making her yelp in fear – right to the mirror-like White’s eyes. Pink is turned this way and that, examined in detail. Her gem is poked and tugged lightly, and her outfit is carefully twisted between the black fingernails.

“Well, well, well… You seem to cause trouble right from the start, little one. When I heard the news, I knew something was off already, but oh – this is ridiculous. What is this color? It’s _nothing_ like what I had in mind. A completely different hue! And the density is – oh, the density… That’s what you get for hatching too early. You had to stay inside for at least another millennia! At least there are no impurities or defects… That would be such a huge shame, would it not?”

Pink is carefully dropped onto a giant white palm, and she sits there, legs wide apart. She is disoriented once more, but she feels ashamed – of what even, she does not know. Once again, it is the strongest feeling she’s ever had in her short life, and it crushes into her and drags her to the bottom. She cannot look up to the white eyes that keep scrutinizing her. Tears start to fall, dripping down her flushed cheeks.

White notices the drops sparkle in her own light, and she tsks, rolling her eyes. Her fingers are too big to wipe Pink’s cheeks, so she lightly ruffles her hair with a thumb instead. “Oh, don’t be so down. Would you kindly stop the waterworks? You are _really_ less than presentable this way, and I need you to look your absolute best when I show you to the others.”

Pink feels another pang of shame, but White is smiling, and she is all she knows, so it must be alright. It must be the right thing to do.

The pink cheeks are wiped off, as well as she can, and she stands up tall. Then, to show that everything is fine, she does a little pirouette, making her garments fluff up and glimmer.

She smiles too.

White’s expression does not change, but her eyes shine with a subtle wonder. “See? This is what I am talking about. Now, look at you, a veritable little star. You sparkle so nicely! Oh, everyone is waiting for you back home. I know already that they will love you! Just… don’t forget to smile. You don’t want to rob them of your starlight, do you?”

She carries Pink back to her ship, not quite trusting anyone with her treasure once again. Pink grabs onto her finger, reassured. Now that she feels better, she peeks around with curiosity. The speed and height make her giggle to herself, and White, hearing it, ruffles her hair again in a silent equivalent to praise.

Behind them, unknown to them both, something wakes up in the dead ground. Something climbs up. Seeds and organisms, brought to life by Pink’s tears, slowly crawl to the surface – a tiny spot of color and life in a sea of grey. Almost an apology. Almost a retribution.

Is it accepted? Is it enough to correct the wrong she’s done by simply existing?

Maybe it is. Maybe it is not. She is not there to see it, and she never learns what has come of the seeds she’s planted.


	3. made a castle of things that were new

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby Pink gets a home and a friend.

It takes them a little while to reach Homeworld. White Diamond does not want to stress the smallest Diamond’s form by the side effects of using the warp engine, so the ship moves at a leisurely pace – just a little above the light speed.

Pink spends the entire time in White’s suite. She does not see anyone except White for days. It is barely a blink for the ancient matriarch, but for the little newborn, those days stretch for eons.

Those days are filled with joy.

White does not leave her side for a moment. She talks about Homeworld matters, not waiting for a response – not expecting one. She marvels at Pink’s glimmer and the gentle light her form emits. She watches the tiny Gem explore the environment, climbing the giant furniture without fear. She even participates in a game or two – whatever Pink’s mind comes up with: hide-and seek, tag, hide-and-seek-and-tag, naming patterns in constellations they see along the way. Pink dances and sings under the scrutiny of her eyes, and no one else’s. She makes up crude little songs while sitting at White’s feet. Her gentle voice trails through the chiseled empty hallways, and it seems like even their gruesome perfection gets a little softer around the edges.

The initial moment of dissatisfaction with Pink’s form is long gone. White watches the youngest Diamond with amazement and wonder, and her smile is brighter than usual. She’s hard to look at, those days, even with a Gem’s untiring eyes.

Everything about Pink seems to be worthy of praise. She is unpolished, unrefined, despite her ideal cut, but somehow it suits her. Her curiosity is adorable, her little quirks are funny, her simplicity is refreshing. She’s just a little clumsy, just a little offhand. She’s so unlike other Gems in all the good ways. The praise keeps running and it never dries up, and Pink soaks it all eagerly. She feels happy. She feels loved. She dances and dances, and her feet are lighter than a sunbeam above the metal floors.

Pink does not know much about the world behind the closed doors of White’s suite, aside from what her program told her. She knows there is a world out there, of course – much bigger than this room, no matter how spacey it is. But she does not think much about it. Her favorite part of the world is here and now, in this shiny room that seems almost infinite, in those happy days that do not seem to end. This world is easy and palatable, like a baby’s first puree. It is a nice thing to get used to for such a small, young being.

(Later, Pink will wonder if it was for her comfort or if it was just another sign of how utterly selfish White could be. True, she was not thrown into a war the second she emerged, like Yellow, nor did she find herself acclimating among endless Homeworld affairs like Blue. But wars and affairs were not her purpose, either.)

White does not let anyone see Pink until they are back to Homeworld. It is not even a conscious decision – it simply happens like something so obvious that it goes without saying. No one else enters the suite. The doors stay closed, and when White needs to deal something outside of their happy little bubble, she never takes Pink, no matter how much the matriarch groans and sulks about having to leave her behind.

Even when they are finally back, and the ship makes a careful landing at the main port of Homeworld, White makes sure to scoop Pink into her palms like a baby bird before stepping out of her suit. She carries her treasure out like that, carefully covered from the outside light with one palm, and she takes away that cover only when the stares of the Gems below get particularly desperate.

The crowds-

Oh, how the crowds _cheer_. They surround the ship from every side. Nearly every Homeworld Gem is here, awaiting the arrival of the fourth Diamond, and it makes up for an unending sea of mismatched forms. Their excitement is somewhat restrained, to keep things in check, but it is still palpable. It is a tidal wave of sound and color and emotion, and Pink clings to White’s thumb with a startled face. Then, remembering her first and only lesson, she quickly steps away from it, as if burnt, smiles and pirouettes – an ethereal little flame swirling over White’s hand.

The crowds cheer louder, in a united gasp. It sounds almost like a harmony, from the light voices of Pearls to the low, rumbling notes of Quartzes. White smiles down at them almost motherly. The only thing that stands out of this perfect harmony is the silence of the two largest Gems, yellow and blue; they stand aside, avoided by the smaller Gems below both out of respect and fear of being crushed. The Diamonds’ faces are short of anything resembling joy. They don’t blink.

Pink meets their stares and stumbles, caught off guard and off rhythm. Those stares are like the first tug of a cold current through a sterile room. She does not know what to make of them, but soon White murmurs her honey-like praise to her once again, and she forgets it all.

She is loved, and sweet, and perfect, and this is the only thing she knows.

***

The happy, closed-off life that Pink led on the ship continues. It is a different room, a different place, but the ceiling stretches just as high and the doors stay just as closed. She stares at the unfamiliar structures behind her window, and they remind her of the unreachable stars behind the illuminators of the ship.

White still stays close, coddling her newest liege as much as she can. Her vast net of subordinates does not need too much attention, so she can dedicate her entire days to playing with Pink. The tiny Diamond regards everything with a sincere awe, making White look at the old trinkets and details again, anew. They stand out to her like an individual flower stands out in a field after your companion points it out to you and names it.

It is in those happy days when Pink is given a companion.

One day, White enters Pink’s quarters with a gait just a tinge faster than usual. She lowers herself to the floor, sinking to her knees in a long, fluid motion, and carefully extends her arm to Pink; and in her glowing, lily-white fingers, there is a drop of the gentlest pink color. It is a Pearl. Uncovered, it floats up and takes form.

She slides off to the floor, and her transparent garments dance around her like fragile wings.

She _is_ fragile, as White explains to Pink, terribly fragile – so much more fragile than a sturdy Quartz or an unbreakable Diamond, so this tiny being needs a softer hand.

Pink barely hears her, mesmerized by the Gem in front of her. She has never seen another Gem so close. The Diamond’s hands flutter all over Pearl as she inspects her with the thoroughness of a toddler inspecting a new toy: pulling, patting, lifting, tugging, turning around. Once or twice, she even picks her up to marvel at how light she is.

White soon notices that her lecture is not heard, and her brows twitch – not really a frown, not yet, but close enough. Pink is not looking to see and rectify her mistake, and that makes for twitch number two.

Yet, Pink immediately swirls Pearl in an improvised waltz (if any Gem had a notion of waltz) and gushes how wonderful she is, and how nice, and how great of a present, and White simply cannot stay annoyed. She waves it off with an easy smile, feeling gratuitous – almost maternal. It shows, too. Pink rushes to hug White’s side, and she’s not reprimanded for that. White does make a face and say a word or two about manners, but this adorable show of genuine gratitude… what Gem would not melt?

She needs to indulge her subordinates, White decides, watching Pink with amusement.

Her good mood stretches to the rest of the week. When Yellow reports another conquest, White allows herself to feign excitement and even praise her – even if the cause is mundane at best, and they both know it. Blue as well receives sudden, slightly unwarranted compliments for how she handled a few matters while White was away. Both of the smaller Diamonds are left confused, but not unhappy. They have long learned to value those sudden rains of affection and not ask for more.

Meanwhile, Pink is overjoyed. She is overwhelmed, too. Pearl stays on her mind the entire time; if White was a little less self-assured, she would feel jealous. She is content watching the two, now not needing to participate herself. Sometimes she hovers over them for hours, staring with an unchanging smile. Sometimes she suggests certain activities in a way that does not leave room for discussion. Sometimes, wishing for a break, she stands up and leaves without much warning, leaving them alone.

They do not mind.

Pearl is Pink’s partner in every game. If there is an inequality between them, it is smoothed over by their age. Both new, both young and fresh, they explore the room and watch the enormous world behind the window. They find uses for things, invent games and songs and dances just for themselves. Pink has just an edge more experience, and the smaller Gem’s eyes sparkle as her Diamond weaves the story of her intergalactic travels again and again. Each time, it gets longer and gains new exciting details.

They don’t mind each other at all. Pearl is a bit shy and reserved, and Pink slowly turns out to be on the bossy and excitable side, but they take to each other easily. They are both children, and they don’t have other friends.

Time passes. It is not long enough to make their surroundings glaze over with the dull familiarity, but enough to make it trickier to come up with new activities. Pearl seems perfectly okay with being as she is, where she is, but Pink feels uneasy. She stares out of the window longer.

She remembers the crowds, the cheers of all those Gems that came to welcome her. She remembers the space that stretched for all infinity. The giant world is terrifying, but it pulls her in. It promises spice that her bland, easily digestible life cannot provide.

For the first time, she finds herself – not wishing, not yet; more like, subtly yearning for something she cannot quite put her glowing finger upon. She is still happy, and her little warm bubble is intact, but its rainbow walls slowly start to dissipate.

One day, as they play together, voices trail behind their door. Pink falls quiet as she hears them boom from afar: even whispering and muffled by the door, they sound much louder than a normal Gem’s voice. She motions for Pearl to shut up and get closer, and together they press to the door.

“This is unthinkable. Don’t you think the court is big enough as it is?”

“Perhaps… but it is not for us to decide.”

“That – that is true, but… why? Why would she create another…”

“Well, she has made her mind, and she acted on it. She never consults with us; you should now that by now.”

“Yes, but something like this? This is big, Blue. She should have at least mentioned…”

“But look at how she beams, lately…”

“Ugh. Do you think I did not notice? She even smiled at a Ruby the other day. The thing nearly burst into smoke!”

The voices, laughing, wander off. Pearl looks between Pink and the door, not quite understanding what is going on.

Pink watches the door. She does not blink. It is a big door, made for someone many times her size, just like everything else in her room. She has never thought about it before, but now she suddenly wonders if she was meant to be larger.

She wonders what it would be like to play with White, to stay side by side with her. To do things she did when she left her quarters.

“I wonder,” she says out loud, “if we can go outside.”

It is the first speck of curiosity, the first stir of a baby bird in their egg; not enough to break the prison, but enough to feel it.

They soon return to their game, but Pink cannot stop thinking about things she probably should not.


End file.
